


If You Wanna Know (You Must Come With Me)

by deliciousshame



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousshame/pseuds/deliciousshame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos never expected that Night Vale would become his home, but now he wonders why he ever wanted to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Wanna Know (You Must Come With Me)

Night Vale is an old place. It has seen humans, and not-so-humans, live and die endless times. It doesn’t care. As long as some remain, so shall it. 

But sometimes, sometimes, there’s someone special. Night Vale gets attached. 

_______________

When he receives the official-looking letter, he thinks his hard work has finally paid. Carlos has been looking for funding for so long, has send demands to every college and pestered most corporations or relevant foundations, but to no avail. Until today.

He’s half right. He doesn’t recognise the name of the corporation sending him a job offer, but it seems too good not to investigate. His own team of scientists and apparently unlimited funding to study strange happenings in some town named Night Vale. Carlos has never heard of it, and he doesn’t care. He has bills to pay and his own research to fund. If he has to spend a few months in the middle of nowhere, well, what’s the worst that could happen? 

_______________

For Cecil, it’s obvious from the moment he first met Carlos that he’s the love of his life. He’s perfect; he’ll never get tired of saying it. It’s as if Carlos was made for him, or put in his life by Fate itself to give Cecil all he’d never known he wanted.

_______________

Everyone knows Carlos, the scientist, if only because they all listen to Cecil’s dulcet tones every day without fail. His hair is perfect. One can’t ignore perfection. Old Woman Josie even said the angels, who might or might not exist, agree. 

He’s peculiar, but all outsiders are, you can’t hold that against them, unless they’re from despicable _Desert Bluffs_. He’ll get used to the town after a while. If not, well, nobody’s worried. Cecil likes him. He’ll look after him. Carlos will stay safe.

_______________

He thinks he used to have more assistants. A perky brunette, small and always excited by the new discoveries they ended up making everyday. Her name might have been… Anna? Andrea? Something like that. Or maybe it was a man, shaped like a footballer but always so careful with the beakers.

Surely he’s wrong. It’s only him, Matthew and Stacy, as it was from the very beginning. You don’t just forget team members. Night Vale is weird, but not _that_ weird. 

_______________

Carlos still doesn’t really know why he _needed_ to see Cecil after he almost died. He just… did. 

_______________

He feels like they grow closer after that. When he takes the plunge, it’s natural to call for personal reasons and pleasant to spend time with Cecil, surrounded by Night Vale’s inherent strangeness. They end up fighting mysterious shadow people, but that’s probably a normal way for a date to end in Night Vale. 

When he kisses Cecil, even he is surprised at his boldness. He’s aware that Cecil is infatuated with him because he’s not blind, not today anyway, and even if he was, he still wouldn’t be deaf.

He doesn’t think he felt that way about a man before, but Night Vale challenges everything he believes in, everyday. 

It feels right.

_______________

To say that internet is difficult to access in Night Vale might be an understatement. Carlos doesn’t check too often, he has a feeling that it’s probably forbidden, but when he’s lucky, or when Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction for all he knows, his phone can reach it.

The company that hired him isn’t listed on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website. In fact, it doesn’t seem to exist, as far as Google is concerned. It doesn’t surprise him. For a while, he thought he was working for a vague, yet menacing government agency, but letting an outsider sciences his way through Night Vale as he wishes doesn’t appear to be their style. 

He didn’t receive orders to stop his research. He still gets paid. He has Cecil. Why should anything else matter?

_______________

One day, Cecil asks him about his family. Carlos has heard all about Cecil’s beloved mother, but somehow, they never talked about his parents. He just tells him that he hasn’t talked to them in years, which is true. He never contacted anyone after he arrived to Night Vale. There was always something happening and science to be done, and after a while it didn’t seem important anymore.

He doesn’t tell Cecil about his sisters. It doesn’t matter.

_______________

Night Vale loves its Voice. It just wants to make sure he’ll be happy.


End file.
